This month brings with it a number of refreshed versions of extremely popular beers from 2017: Dry Hopped Incipient & Black Currant Incipient, as well as 2 cool projects that have been aging for a very long time: Progenote (14 months old) and Laurentian: Superior (11 months old). Both of these beers are also benefits for some pretty amazing organizations.

1. Progenote -Dark Flanders Style Sour Ale Aged in Bourbon Barrels. This was the third beer we ever brewed here at Speciation, and it has been sitting in fresh bourbon barrels ever since. Progenote is quite acidic, but also has a very pleasant malty sweetness and bourbon/oak flavors to balance the acidity. We will be donating $2/bottle to the Friends of Grand Rapids Parks to go toward our continued tree planting efforts next fall for the Brewers Grove. 642 bottles produced. Limited distribution across the lower peninsula. $22/bottle. Corked & Caged 750ml. Limit 1/person.

2. Hopeful Monster - Foeder Aged Solera Sour With Black Currants. Our fastest selling beer ever (42 seconds... I think) returns as Hopeful Monster! This is an updated version of Black Currant Incipient form 2017. This batch spent a few months in stainless, a few months in our oak foeder, and a few months in bottles. It was then was dosed with twice the amount of black currant concentrate (from Coloma Foods in southern MI) as last year. It tastes like the jam. 778 bottles were produced. Limited distribution across the lower peninsula. $22/bottle. Corked & Caged 750ml. Limit 1/person.

4. The Laurentian Series: Lake Superior -Spontaneous Sour Golden Ale Fermented & Aged in Oak Barrels. The story begins in early 2014 at a certain sour brewery in Denver. Whitney and I regularly visited breweries and brainstormed for hours about what our own brewery would be like some day. At this particular brainstorming session Whitney mentioned the idea of collecting yeast from around each of the Great Lakes to ferment individual beers. This idea quickly evolved into a much more grand and possibly insane idea of spontaneously fermenting a batch next to each Great Lake to capture the unique flora of the area.

Fast forward 3 years and Whitney and I somehow managed to open a brewery specializing in sour and wild beer, and are in the unique place to act on her idea. We packed up 2 of our stainless IBC's, some grain, our whole family, and drove up to Marquette, MI to brew our first spontaneously fermented beer at Ore Dock Brewing Company. The crew at Ore Dock were incredibly welcoming and brewed some fantastic wort for us. We then pumped the wort into our makeshift coolship to chill near Lake Superior overnight, exposed to the open air. The next day we drove the wort home and pumped it into sanitized barrels to ferment and age for nearly a year.

Each bottle is labeled using locally-sourced maple wood veneer, and was designed by our friend Elizabeth VanStee. Along with the special label, this beer will be accompanied by a small booklet featuring original artwork by our friend, David McKie, who created illustrations in a Native American inspired design representing two Ojibwe myths, the Lake Superior Merman and the Lake Superior Water Panther, Misshepezhieu. These myths relate our heritage, as descendants of the Ojibwe people, as well as the history of this land.

With the release of Lake Superior, we have decided to donate $1000 to the National Wildlife Fund, for their efforts in protecting the Great Lakes against the threat of the Enbridge Line 5 oil pipeline. The preservation of the Great Lakes is extremely important to us. As residents, parents, daughters and sons, and as brewers, we believe it is our duty to be the best stewards of this great land as we can be.